From Pickup Truck to 7 Figures — Interview with Kirk & Jacob McKinney, Co-Founders, Junk Teens

Presented by Zapier, the AI automation company

Kirk and Jacob McKinney bought a $4,000 pickup truck in 2021 and turned it into a $3 million junk removal business — Junk Teens — while still in high school. No funding, no tech platform, no professional crew. Just two brothers, local teens, and a refusal to dump everything in a landfill.

They hit $120,000 in year one with a single truck, rebranded to Junk Teens in 2022, and now run 8 dump trucks with over 35 people doing 40–50 jobs a day.

In this episode, the McKinney brothers break down how they use GoHighLevel + Jobber and built a custom internal app to manage hundreds of daily leads, why their first $600,000 came from zero paid ads, how repurposing and donating items instead of dumping became a competitive edge, and why running lean forces better systems.

What

you'll learn

• How two teenagers hit $120K in year one with a $4,000 pickup truck and zero funding

• Why their first $600,000 in revenue came entirely from word of mouth and referrals

• The back-office stack — GoHighLevel, Jobber, custom app, QuickBooks — that runs 40–50 daily jobs

• How donating and repurposing items instead of dumping became a brand and cost advantage

• Why running lean forces you to build better systems before you scale

• Dump fees range from $200+/ton in Massachusetts to $30/ton in Florida — what that means for expansion

• Pivoting with momentum beats planning for months and never starting

Links:

• Junk Teens

• Kirk McKinney on LinkedIn

• Jacob McKinney on LinkedIn

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